Taipei, March 6 (CNA) Vice President Annette Lu called on the oldest woman in Taipei Tuesday to pay tribute to Taiwan's women centenarians before Women's Day, which falls on Thursday.
Lu called on 106-year-old Huang Lien-mei Tuesday morning, and presented her with gifts of gold and medicinal tea. Huang's family said that she likes to walk in a nearby botanical garden every morning, do some simple exercises, eat light food and go to bed early.
To celebrate the first Women's Day of the century, Lu has launched a program in which scholars will interview 286 of the island's women centenarians to understand their life experiences. The vice president noted that according to the Ministry of the Interior, there are 501 centenarians in Taiwan, with women accounting for two thirds of them. The centenarians live mostly in Taipei City, followed by Taipei County and Taoyuan, Taichung and Miaoli Counties.
The MOI statistics also show that 93.7 percent of the centenarians got married once in their lives, and never divorced. Some 83.5 percent of the centenarians live with their families, which they say provides a better quality of life.
According to the MOI, most of the centenarians eat a balanced diet of many different kinds of light foods, rather than depending on a single type of food. This gives them more balanced nutrition.
Lu said that as modern men and women live longer, the nation needs to pay more attention to the elderly so that the gray population can live in happiness and dignity.